Skip to main content

Rep. Chu POST GRAD Act Will Make Advanced Degrees and Better Jobs More Attainable

June 21, 2019

Washington, DC - Today, Rep. Judy Chu (CA-27) reintroduced the Protecting Our Students by Terminating Graduate Rates that Add to Debt (POST GRAD) Act. The bill would once again make graduate students eligible to receive Federal Direct Subsidized Loans. That eligibility was ended by the Budget Control Act of 2011. Rep. Chu released the following statement:

"Some of the best paying jobs are jobs in fields like healthcare, mental health, and school administration – growing fields that require advanced degrees. But while we may want the best and brightest, the high cost of one of those advanced degrees means the jobs are often left just for those who can afford high tuition costs and onerous loans. That's not fair. It holds back families and our economy. This bill would fix that by treating graduate students like their undergraduate counterparts and once again making them eligible to receive Federal Direct Subsidized Loans. These loans do not accrue interest while the student is still in school, saving the student thousands of dollars over time. This is common sense. At a time when our country is facing a shortage of specialized workers in critical fields, we should be doing everything we can to encourage students to enter these fields, rather than creating additional barriers to higher education."

The POST GRAD Act is cosponsored by: Reps. Peter DeFazio (OR-04), Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), Suzan DelBene (WA-01), Darren Soto (FL-09), Scott Peters (CA-52), Juan Vargas (CA-51), Grace Napolitano (CA-32), Raul Grijalva (AZ-03), Brenda Lawrence (MI-14), Julia Brownley (CA-26), Eric Swalwell (CA-15), Gwen Moore (WI-04), Derek Kilmer (WA-06), Dina Titus (NV-01), Linda Sanchez (CA-38), Barbara Lee (CA-13).

The POST GRAD Act is endorsed by: American Psychological Association (APA), American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM), National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU), American Council on Education (ACE), Asian American & Pacific Islander Association of Colleges and Universities (APIACU), National Association of Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS), American Art Therapy Association (AATA), Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH), American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), California State University (CSU), American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA), American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), National Alliance of Specialized Instructional Support Personnel (NASISP), Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

Issues:Education